What Makes a Monster
by SilyaBeeodess
Summary: College means a fresh start. New friends, new freedoms, new chances, new adventures; A new beginning. To Randy Boggs, this new beginning means everything in order to change the course of his life in the background, sitting idly, to something greater. However, at what price?
1. Chapter 1

_((__**Author's Note:**__ Just a heads up; if you haven't seen "Monster's University" yet, you might not want to read this due to some spoilers. Other than that… enjoy!))_

The chameleon-like monster marched across the currently empty campus, pass the statues of famed intellects now departed from life and into the silent courtyard. His face, underneath the smeared layers of smashed chocolate cake and vanilla and strawberry frosting, was a darker shade of violet than the rest of his scaly skin due to his blush of embarrassment.

He had left his first college party early due to the disaster that led to this- getting smashed in the face with his own cupcakes. Right in front of a couple of girls he was trying to talk to no less! He never had a girlfriend throughout high school and now after this fiasco he doubted he'd have one through his college years. He was the laughing stock of the campus and he still wasn't exactly sure how it happened! One minute he's offering the girls to try his cupcakes and the next… _splat! _Something had rammed by him like a bullet and caused this mess. The inevitable laughter that followed still echoed in his skull.

_So much for impressing the cool kids…_ he thought with dismay. To think he actually had thought that this was finally going to be his year. No more hiding in the background, no more failures, no more brainless bullies and thugs, but a fresh start. How wrong he had been. Oh, he had attention all right; just not the kind he wanted.

Upon reaching the courtyard, he knelt next to the wide stream and began cleaning himself up. His dorm was still a ways away and if there were others still up- which their no doubt were- he didn't want to make a fool of himself any more than he already had. The cool water first came as a shock to his system, especially with a breeze- as light as it was- blowing. However, he got used to it.

He looked at his blurry reflection and snarled; slapping the water is distaste with the back of one hand. It was only his second day at Monsters University and nothing was going right! He had made at least one friend, some one-eyed green monster named Mike Wazowski, but Mike was so wrapped up in his studies and the plans he had, he barely had time to hang out and just enjoy his newfound freedom as an adult. In other words, Mike didn't have much time for him, or perhaps any friends at all for that matter.

The reptile froze as he felt a ghost of a touch trace the tip of his tail. Gasping, he snapped his head around, but there was no one there. No like he could tell very easily though- he had to squint even more so in the darkness. It was times like this when he missed his glasses, which he had tossed aside due to the fact that they gave him away when he used his camouflage ability to turn himself invisible.

"Is… anyone there?" he questioned softly, eyes narrowed, darting back and forth across the dimly-lit area.

The touch returned, this time pressing against the side of his right cheek, wiping away part of the mashed cupcake and leaving a clean line in its place. This time when he spun around, he came face to face with a pair of bright bluish-green eyes blinking down at him. He startled back, turning the same shade as the ground underneath him- even though the frosting still gave him away- and crying out in surprise.

"Hmm… Not bad…" said the monster before him, as she popped her finger out of her mouth with a suction-cup sound and smacked her lips, "I prefer my cake, well, as a cake, but not bad at all. Watch it with the sugar though; it's too sweet. Tastes like a rainbow dipped in sparkles and chocolate."

The female monster was bipedal with a long, thin, pointed tail that was nearly the length of her entire body. To keep it out of the way for the most part, she wrapped it around one leg, leaving some slack so she could still walk or run with ease. Each of her hands and feet ended with four digits. Her body was covered in extremely tiny, fine scales of a light mint green that you had to touch to even really be able to tell that they were there at all. Many small frills, resembling both hair and blades of grass, covered the top of her head in a pixie cut. She wore a solid black turtleneck that stretched halfway down her calves. Her amused grin was lined with two rows of sharp teeth.

"Umm…" he shifted nervously on his feet as he quickly stood, cleared away what remained on his face, and revealed himself once more, returning back to his usual shade of purple. "I-I'm sorry… but who are you?" He had never seen this monster before on campus, and not only was it difficult for him to talk to girls, she was intimidating. Well, intimidating to him, at least.

"Name's Tanith Hartbrooke," she replied, "but call me Tani- everyone does. Well, actually, no one's ever called me that, but I like it. I'm a Scaring Major." She gruffly stuck out a hand to him. "You are?"

"Randy Boggs… Also, a Scaring Major," he answered shyly, trying hard to keep his voice level as he tentatively shook her hand. His voice grew softer and softer with the next thing he asked, as if it would set her off. "But… if you're studying scaring too… how come I didn't see you in class today?"

"Wasn't here," she shrugged, "I just flew into Monstropolis this afternoon because my first flight had to make a quick landing due to some sort of malfunction, and then the one for this morning got delayed. I've been running all over campus all day trying to get everything in order."

He kept quiet, not knowing what to say next. He had never been one to make easy conversation, or conversation at all actually.

"You don't say much, do you?" She smirked, placing her hands on her hips.

"S-sorry…" he stuttered, "I got to go… It's been a big day and all…" he began to back away.

"K then," she shrugged, "Then with that, I bid you…" Tani bowed before him dramatically, one arm swinging back, "A du!"

"Yeah… bye…" he started walking away. This day had just gone from thrilling, to frightening, to a full out nightmare, to weird. He just wanted to go to bed and forget about everything.

"See ya 'round Randy!" he heard her call out. She waved wildly at him.

"See ya…" he replied hesitantly, waving back, but with nowhere near as much confidence or craziness. He pondered for a moment why she was out this late on her own- it wasn't safe, but then he decided to push those thoughts aside. It wasn't his business and he didn't think he wanted it to be.

Finally reaching the dorm, he was surprised to discover that Mike wasn't there. He had told him he was going to be studying for the entire night for the end of the semester exam, with that being the reason why he refused to join him at the party. Randy's shoulders sagged disappointingly. Had Mike been lying to him? Maybe he wasn't good enough to be seen around. Maybe even Mike didn't like him.

Randy hated this, _all_ of this. Why was it that he never managed to fit in anywhere he went?

He was about to turn in for the night when Mike burst into the dorm, positively fuming. Whether or not he had lied to him didn't stop Randy from being concerned, "Where were you? What happened?"

"I'll tell you what happened!" he yelled, throwing his cap on his desk, "That arrogant, fat pile of fuzz Sullivan, that's what happened!"

Randy remained silent as he waited for Mike to continue. James P. Sullivan was the son of Bill Sullivan, a famed scarer throughout the monster world. The success of his family left him cocky when it came to his own ability as a scarer. It was only the second day of college and anyone could tell that much. Yet still everyone admired and fawned over him. He wondered what the guy had done to set off his roommate.

"First he comes parading in here with that stupid pig… thing! Then has me chase it all over campus, and _then_ says that I'm not cut out to be scarer! Can you believe it? I bet I work ten times harder in one hour than that moron has worked in his whole life!" He pauses, his one eye widening a bit, as a thought comes to him. "You think I've got a shot, right? I mean, I know I'm not the most terrifying monster around, but…"

The reptile frowned. While he wanted to be honest, he didn't want to hurt Mike either. And in all honesty, he wasn't very scary. In fact, he was probably the least frightening monster he'd seen. Did he have a chance? Randy gave him a soft, reassuring smile, "Sure. You work hard, you're confident… Heck, you already know most of the stuff the professor's teaching us. Look, you've got all semester. You'll show that guy." Looking away, he hoped he wouldn't come to regret those words.

"Thanks, Randy." Mike marked off the day on his calendar before plopping down on his own bed across from him. "Look, I'm sorry I snapped like that. You probably didn't want to hear it. I haven't even asked you yet; how did that party go? I figured you'd still be out."

"It was fine," he lied. "But I figured I'd turn in early. The whole day's left me drained, I guess."

"Oh come on! You're going to have to give me more than that, Buddy! What happened?"

"N-nothing happened! I walked in, dropped off the cupcakes, danced a bit, then walked out! I just told you; I'm exhausted!"

"Uh-huh…" Mike smirked at him smugly, "You met a girl, didn't you?"

"What?!"

"You did! I didn't think you were such a Casanova. She interested? Did you get her number?"

"Mike, I barely got her name, much less her number! No, we just talked for a second and then I left. Besides, she's not my type." Getting a strange look from his friend, he continued, "She's crazy."

"Says the guy who let a window of opportunity seal shut."

…

The next day, he and Mike sat together for lunch in the Commons Cafeteria, trading notes as they ate in order to piece together everything from today's lesson. Neither of them had been able to write down all that Professor Knight had swiftly lectured over. Both were considering getting tape recorders.

As Randy squinted down at the notes in one hand, holding a pencil in another and a blood orange slice in third, he heard a voice call out to him so suddenly and so loudly that it made him disappear.

"RRRRRRAAAND-EEEEH!"

His surprise at the voice also made him flinch; causing him to squeeze the orange slice he was holding, the juice squirting right into Mike's eye. The green, smaller monster cried out in pain, his hands flying up to his face.

It was too little too late for vanishing. The strange girl he had met last night had already spotted him in the crowd in the café and waltzed right up to the table. He didn't even have time to say sorry to Mike before she plopped down next to him. He felt mortified under the curious stares of other monsters. Meanwhile, it seemed that Tani didn't care in the least. What was wrong with her? Didn't she see how much of a fool she was making of herself? And not _just_ herself, but him as well.

"Hi Tani…" he said exasperatingly with a hint of bashfulness, scratching the back of his head and refusing to look at her, "How are you?"

"Fine. Would've been better if my roommate hadn't changed my alarm this morning. Imagine- you set it for six thirty and instead you wake up at eight to the radio playing _ghouls just wanna have fu-un_!"

At this, he chuckled lightly, "I guess that would be kinda bad." He looked over to Mike sitting on the other side of him and gave him an apologetic look after seeing his now red eye. "Speaking of roomies, this is mine. Tani Hartbrooke, meet Mike Wazowski."

"Nice to meet ya, Mikey!" she took one of his hands to shake.

"Yeah… A pleasure," he glanced over at Randall, who pointed at Tani while she wasn't looking and then made a swirling motion with one finger by the side of his head. _I told you she was crazy._

"So, what did ya guys think of the lesson today? I'll tell ya, I sounded like a dying mutt! I didn't think roaring could be _this_ hard. I'm starting to think I'm more or a hiss or growl kind of gal."

"I don't think you're vocal cords might be suited for it, but remember that it comes from the diaphragm and the back of the throat."

"Yeah, well, I wish it came natural like it does for that Sullivan kid. James, right? Man, does he make it look easy." She rested one elbow on top of the table, cupping one cheek, and her forked tongue shot out to snap up a few of the fried flies she had on her tray.

At the mention of Sullivan, Mike scowled. Not wanting to risk this turning into an argument- not that he would blame her for saying something like that; this was technically her first day after all and he mostly pestered Mike alone- Randy decided to direct the conversation somewhere else. "So, Tani, you haven't told us who your roommate is yet."

"TANITH!" someone shrieked from the other side of the café.

Tani's face blanked and she quickly ducked down low. Pointing a figure, she answered, "_That's_ my roommate…" It was a preppy, pink monster from the PNK sorority. "Do _not_ tell her I'm here! That monster's insane!"

Mie rolled his eye, "Really? I would've guessed that you and she are best friends. You seem a lot alike."

"Are you kidding me?" she replied in a harsh whisper, "She's nothing like me! She's-"

"Tanith!" the pink monster squealed, spotting her and racing over, "I've been looking everywhere for you girl! Where have you been? It's like you disappeared right after class! You've just got to meet my sisters; they're such dolls and I know they'll adore you!" She raised a brow. "Why are you on the floor?"

"Um… Hey, Crystal!" Tani greeted with the most cheerful grin as she could muster, "I just, uh…" she quickly picked something up from the ground and pocketed it, "dropped a penny!"

"Oh! Well, anyways, I _told _you to meet me after class!"

"Guess I forgot…"

"No problem, but be careful not to let it slip your mind again, silly! If you want to be a sister, you've got to prioritize. So, I was thinking…" She pulled out a pink MU shirt with flowers on it out of a bag hanging on one of her arms, "We'd have a shopping spree downtown before we hit the house! We're going to get your scales dyed pink!" She squealed again, "Won't that be sweet?! You'll fit right in!"

Tani visibly cringed at the mention of dying her scales, but the other girl didn't catch it. "Oh… Gee, Crystal, that does sound… sweet, but I _really _can't go. I'm gonna be busy tonight…" She down at the floor, trying to come up with a good excuse, before her eyes widened as an idea came to mind. "I'm going on a date!" Her eyes quickly scanned the arena, before they fell on Randy and she pointed over at her fellow reptile, "With him!"

Hearing this, Randy choked on his cup of water. He was unable to speak as he was struck by a coughing fit.

"Crystal!" shrieked another member of the PNK sorority, waving over to her sister.

"Carrie! Hi!" she turned and shrieked back.

Finding this small window to get a word out secretly, Tani spun fast and gripped Randy by the shoulders, "_Please_ play along! She wants to turn me into her _clone_!" By the time Crystal looked their way again, Tani had one arm around him and was smiling like a buffoon.

Crystal sighed and rolled her eyes, "Well… alright. I'll let you by this time, but later we're getting down to business!"

Once she was gone, Tani retook her seat and dropped her head on the table with a groan, "I've_ got_ to get a new roommate. And if I can't, I'm sleeping in the sewers for the rest of the semester… maybe for the rest of college."

"She'll just find you after class, you know," Mike stated with a grin.

"I can hide. I'm very good at hiding."


	2. Chapter 2

Collecting his toothbrush, floss, and toothpaste, Randy began to step out of the dorm, heading to the bathrooms. Tomorrow morning he would buffs his scales, but tonight he was too tired and just wanted to get to sleep. On Mike's insistence, the two had gone over every little thing they had learned from the day _twice_ and practiced their roars, leaving both of them with sore throats. He was certain they would've been made punching bags by the others in the rest of the hall's dorms hadn't it been for the fact that someone further down had their stereo turned up as loud as it could be. Whoever they were, they were still up, actually. It would be a miracle if he got any sleep at all.

He turned the knob and gave the door a gentle push, but it somehow just swung back in his face. He was confused at first, but then he was also too exhausted to care. Just as he opened the door for the second time, a head swung upside down to greet him, fangs bared. "RANDY!"

He fell back, screaming, and disappeared from sight. A young woman's laughter filled his ears and he glared in irritation at the now familiar figure. "Can you stop doing that?!" It was amazing that she hadn't woken up Mike, who had passed out on his bed.

"Aww…" Tani pouted, whining, "But it's so much fun to see you squirm." She laughed again at his scowl as he heard this. "I'm just teasing you is all. I can't help it; you're irresistible!"

Randy got back up and went out the door, watching her curiously. "How are you doing that?" he asked. She was perched carefully on top of the thin door frame, keeping her balance.

"What? This? I've been climbing for years." She removed one hand from the wall and showed it to him. "One word; claws. Not like I can climb on the ceiling or anything like that, but I'm a master with walls."

As she got down, Randy winced at the sight of all of the scratches dug into the wall and door frame. He shook his head and began to gather his fallen belongings. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night anyway? We've still got a class tomorrow."

"Haven't you forgotten something?" she leaned back against the wall, folding her arms over her chest. It was just now that he realized she had worn some perfume- something that smelled like wilting roses.

He thought about it long and hard for a moment before saying, "….Homework?"

She rolled her eyes, "Our date, you moron."

"What?!" his voice rose in pitch, "I-I thought you just needed for me to cover for you! I didn't actually think I'd have to go out with you!" He shut himself up right there, not believing what he just said._ Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!_

She gave him a deadpan look before sighing, "I'm going to pretend you never said that if you pretend you can stand me for longer than five minutes. Look, Crystal's still up and waiting for me to get back to the dorm. She'll want a report and I can't just weasel my way out of this one. The Pink Squad's following me everywhere! They'll know it was all a lie!"

He couldn't believe how ridiculous she was being. "Pfft! You're being paranoid!"

"Oh, really? I am, am I?" With that, Tani marched into his room and headed straight for the window, yanking upon the blinds.

He didn't really want to look, but he did. Sure enough, two of the sisters from PNK stood watch outside of the main exit. Maybe she wasn't the crazy one after all.

"And there's one on the stairs."

"What'll we do?" he asked.

"We're going out. There's a bus stop that leads to downtown Monstropolis leaving in fifteen minutes. Don't look at me like that; you've been making me wait out in the hall for over thirty. If we run, we can make it. After that, there are only two other buses that'll bring us back. So unless you feel like walking, we gotta move!"

He didn't even have much time to kick his belongings back into his room before she- literally- shoved him out the door. They could hear the sound of another pair of footsteps as they raced downstairs, but met no one on their way, proving that she hadn't been lying about a third PNK. The next thing Randy knew, he was out of the dorm building and bounding across the campus. To his surprise, Tani was fast for a two-legged creature. Even on all eights he fought to keep up with her. "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" she kept chanting.

…

Sometime after a twenty minute bus ride, the two found themselves sitting on a bench in downtown Monstropolis. They didn't do anything spectacular; they just got some scream cream from a stand with what they had on them at the time. It wasn't much, but it still counted as a date. And even if the PNKs somehow followed them all the way here, there wasn't anything they could say against it.

"What's with you and the PNKs anyway?" he questioned, which was a bit bold for him, "I mean… if they wanted me to join their sorority, I'd leap at the chance."

Tani smirked over at him and snorted.

Realizing what he'd just said, he blurted out, "I mean if I was a _girl_!"

"Well, where do I start?" With her arms folded over her chest, she used her tail to hold her double scoop of strawberry and vanilla scream cream with and gave it a lick. "They're the very image of the stereotypical preppy girls that rule over all and always wind up backstabbing each other, they want me to dye my scales _pink_, yesterday, when I came back to my dorm, everything on my side had been rearranged- took me forever to find my books, and to top it all off, they want me to change my name to Cadence."

"Cadence?" he snickered.

"Don't even get me started."

"What'd you tell them?"

"I said if they called me that again, I'd snap off their legs," she shrugged, "but that only encouraged them!" She changed her voice to a higher octave, mimicking one of the sisters, "_That's the attitude we're looking for! Feisty! Fierce! You're practically a sister already!_" Tani snorted again, "Kill me."

Working on his own chocolate cone, he thought about what she said, but it was still difficult for him to understand. Maybe it was because he didn't have the confidence that she did, or the comfort in his social status like she did, but anyway he looked at it he couldn't find a reason for her to _not_ want to join PNK. PNK and ROR were the top sorority and fraternity on campus. _Every_ freshman had their hopes set on becoming a member of either group. It meant that you were the best; that you were at the top. And who didn't want to be the best?

"So, what made you choose Scaring as your major?" she asked.

It was his turn to shrug, "I don't know, it's just always been what I've strived for? I'm not sure how to put it, it's just… when I was little, for as long as I can remember, I knew that's what I was going to be. A scarer. And, I suppose, as I got older it never changed. And with the energy crisis getting worse as the years go by, it makes me want to make a difference."

"And?"

"And what?"

"There's got to be more to it than that. Come on, you don't have one motive for yourself? Not even an ity-bitty one?"

He had her there, but he fell quiet until he received a few nudges from her to go on. Maybe he was the crazy one now, but she was easy to talk to. "… I've always been the small town kid with big dreams and not much else. I hung back in class. I kept quiet. I did my work and moved on with my life. Kind of depressing, I guess, but it'll all be worth it if I can become a scarer. People look up to them, admire them…" He couldn't finish.

"… You've felt like a nobody, so you're trying to make yourself a somebody…" She finished for him softly.

"Yeah…" He said even softer.

He couldn't take this. This was getting too deep than he would've liked and Tani was still pretty much a stranger. He went ahead and changed the topic back to her. "What about you?"

"You could say I've got a few things to prove…"

"Like what?"

"About the same things that you want to prove. That I can make something of myself. That I'm alive." She paid more and more attention to her slowly melting scream cream. "That I'm just as much a monster as everyone else."

"You sound like Mike," he grinned,

"Well, maybe Mikey and I do have something in common then."

"Why do you call him Mikey?"

"What? Does it bug him?"

"I don't know."

"Then let's give it a few days and see. Let's face it though, if it does, I'm just going to keep calling him that."

He chuckled, "You're impossible."

She grinned over at him, "Naturally so. And look at this! You're laughing! See? It's not too hard to tolerate me."

His scales flushed and he scratched the back of his head. "Yeah… Sorry about what I said earlier. I didn't mean it like that, but I don't actually _know_ you and you're… well, you. You're bold, and loud, and nuts, and-" he glanced over to see she was making that deadpan expression again, "…I'm making it worse, aren't I?"

"Yes."

"Sorry…"

"You're such a dork," Tani chortled, cuffing him gently to let him know she was teasing.

…

The next morning, Randy felt as if he had been run over by a truck. His head pounded and his feet dragged up the steps to MU's School of Scaring. He hadn't gotten much sleep, even though he and Tani had come back to the campus to have gotten at least a good six hours' worth.

"Latte?" Tani offered as she bound up the steps to meet him, holding two to-go mugs of said drink.

She held one out to him and he smiled appreciatively as he took it. "Thanks."

"No problem. Least I could do after you saved my butt last night. I wouldn't know what I would've done."

"Where's mine?" Mike joked, walking alongside them.

Tani rolled her eyes and revealed a third mug held by her tail, handing it to him. "For your silence."

"Buying my silence with coffee… A little low, but original."

Watching his two friends- he guessed that he could consider Tani a friend now anyway- took away his attention and Randy suddenly found himself walking straight into what felt like a wall.

A giant, furry wall.

"Gah!" Sullivan cried out as the collision made Randy spill his hot coffee on him, drenching him as well as his new ROR jacket. He stared down disbelievingly at the mess, trying to ignore the laughter of the other ROR members standing right behind him.

Randy turned pale, holding all four hands up as if to fend off a blow, "I-I'm really sorry, James! I didn't see you and wasn't paying attention, I-!"

"You little _idiot_!" Sullivan shouted. His wasn't actually this crude most of the time, more of a down-to-earth kind of guy, but to top this embarrassment with the other ROR's watching him pushed him over the edge, "Watch where you're going!"

"I-I didn't m-mean it! I swear!" With a low growl, Sullivan stepped toward him, as if he was about to hit him. Randy shut his eyes, frozen still, preparing for the worst.

Nothing happened. Not to Randall anyway. Sullivan wound up tripping on something, diving forward and down the stairs. Mike barely had time to pull Randy away as the furry monster went soaring.

Head held high, with a flick of her tail, Tani sent the rest of her own coffee pouring on top of the now collapsed Sullivan. "Oops," she smirked, "I really need to watch this thing better. Bad tail," she smacked it lightly, "Bad, naughty little tail! I can't take you anywhere!" With that, she made the end of it sag low, as it were a person lowering its head in shame. "Come on, guys. We've got a class to get to." She started leading the way inside without giving the ROR's a second glance.

"Don't pay attention to her, Jimmy," Johnny Worthington said to the freshmen with a smirk, helping him get back up, "After all, she'd make a better screamer than a scarer. I've seen kittens more frightening than her."

"Yeah," Chet laughed, along with the rest of ROR, "I bet even those chumps at Oozma Kappa could outscare her."

That caught her attention, "You wanna eat those words, crab cake?" As he quickly shut up, she smirked, "Thought so."


	3. Chapter 3

The trio of freshman sat next to each other in room A478 for their SCAR 130: Science of Scaring course, with Randy in the middle. It was no monster's favorite class- most wanted to skip the why, and get to the how, but it was a requirement for graduating. It was a strange hand of fate that they all had it together.

Rather than the massive chamber similar in design to an auditorium, the room-although still large- was filled with straight rows of long tables, with all of the chairs turned to face the board. It had no windows and was located in what would've been the basement of the School of Scaring. Tani and Randy bristled a bit from the cold room, but Mike, being a warm-blooded creature, took no notice.

The class was taught by none other than Dr. Tawny Van der Slime, the school's Fear Standards Chair who had been given the Morrow Award for Scaring Teaching Excellence. Rather than pursuing a career as a scarer, she dedicated her studies to discovering the 'why' of scaring. Why could we only collect human screams? Why were they so powerful? Why do- not just humans, but living creatures in general, feel fear?

"I'm not here to bore you," she told all of the students after introductions were concluded, "nor am I here to teach you how to sneak, or hide, or hiss. I'm not even here to make scarers out of any of you. I'm here to make you thinkers.

"You see, all creatures, even monsters, whether we'd like to admit it or not, feel fear. It is a part of nature and a part of us that few can control. Some run from it, others deny it, and some live for it. In order to be a scarer, you must understand fear, harness your own, and use that knowledge to discover what any specific human child fears the most and why so. Once you've accomplished that, it is merely a matter of using those fears to your advantage, toying with the mind.

"Everyone, please get out your textbooks, _The Anatomy of Fear _by Gore Bunson, and turn to page twelve to begin chapter one. Let us start by asking ourselves, what is fear? While it may be a matter of the individual in question, you will find in your textbooks the definition, 'an anticipation of danger.' While a very loose way of explaining it, it is none the less correct. What is there to fear in something that will do us good? There isn't. Creatures only fear what brings them harm. It doesn't matter what form the harm is in, or how small the damage. We will discuss this much further in another lesson, but what causes fear? Anyone?"

Over on Randy's right, a slimy, sickly yellow monster lifted up one of his eight tentacles and answered sheepishly, "Being alone?"

"Not quite what I'm looking for, Mr. Trummish, but thank you," she replied, "That is something we may fear, but it's not a cause. _Why_ would one be afraid of being alone?" She looked around again, but sighed, proceeding to write something down on the board. "_Social Conditioning_! _Those_ are the words I'm looking for! People who feel fear for either themselves or for others socially often question in they will fit in or be cast aside in society. Most beings have a desire to belong and wonder what their chances are of being seen as such. When viewing their chances negatively, this leads to a destruction of morale and confidence, and people respond to this is different ways. Or perhaps besides belonging, it could be a matter of trust. There are some who have been hurt so much by other living beings that they fear others as a means of protecting themselves against that pain, even if the people they fear may be completely trustworthy. These are just a few of the fears that can fit under this cause.

"Is there anything else? Come on, you monsters, _think_! Surely you don't believe to get by on scary faces alone!"

"The unknown," Tani said boldly, raising one arm high in the air.

"Good, Ms. Hartbrooke. You're right," the professor gave a single nod her way, "Why is the unknown considered a cause? It's because creatures find fear in what they can't explain. Because they can't explain it, because of an underlying sense of paranoia, they are afraid. If you don't know about something, then it's logical that you can't defend yourself against it or control the outcome. That is why people claim to be afraid of the dark. It is not the dark itself that they are afraid of, it's what lurks in it. You took away that creature's sight, so it can't see what's coming. And it could very well possibly be a friend as much as a foe, but they will assume a foe every time."

As Professor Van der Slime began writing down the rest of the causes on the board, Randy whispered over to Tani, "How'd you know that one?"

"Maybe I'm not the top scarer," she whispered back with a sly grin, "but fear- and how it works- is my specialty."

"Brag much?" he joked.

"Can't help but be a little proud," she said smugly.

"As you can see," the professor lectured, "fear is when we suspect a threat, whether it is great or small, or whether one may or may not exist in the first place. Fear is the most primal survival instinct, and can force you to react before you are even consciously aware of a danger at all.

"On page fourteen, you will find a diagram describing how the brain functions in order to create the response of fear. Here is the amygdala, where…"

As she continued going on about the brain, Randy stared to the board and down at his own textbook, squinting as he tried to figure out what she was pointing at. It was difficult for him to see far off without his glasses and as he strained to make out the somewhat blurry shapes, his head began to ache. He reached over for the case, which he always had with him, but it wasn't there.

He had left it in the dorm.

Around him, he could hear the constant scraping and scratching of pencils quickly jotting notes down on paper. He looked down at his own nearly blank page and wrote down the page numbers in order to go back to them when he had the chance. Perhaps with Mike's help, he'd be able to piece together what he was missing, but Mike was working this afternoon.

A paper was scooted over to him and bumped into one of his other hands. He glanced down at what was written on it, clearly in a girl's handwriting. _Can't see?_ It was Tani's note, but she acted like it wasn't, pretending to drown herself in her textbook.

He didn't like passing notes in class. He hated it even in high school whenever he was just the middleman. It took away from the lesson and was an annoying distraction. However, how much was he really going to miss after what he was missing now? Trying to be as discrete as he could, almost nervous to respond, he wrote back, _I forgot my glasses._

Scribble, scribble. _You wear glasses? _was the reply.

_Not usually_, he lied,_ I just need them sometimes._

_We could go over notes later,_ she wrote, _I'll come over to your room at 4._

He was free at that time, but being in the same room with Tani, _alone_, for who knows how long didn't tempt him as easily as it would others. She made him nervous, not because she was dangerous, cruel, or anything like that, she was just- as he had said- Tani… There was no other way to describe her really. If they were in a crowded, public place, or if Mike was with him to help him know what to say, it would be easier.

Frankly though, Randy didn't see her giving him much of a choice in the matter.

_Ok_, was all he wrote back.

So they met up at the agreed time and place, textbooks in tow. Tani knocked on the door and greeted Randy with her award winning, fanged grin as he opened it. After a brief spill of the rest of their day, they got to work, with her explaining the functions of the brain involving fear.

"It all starts with a stimulus. The stimulus is what makes you scared and it can be anything. From there, there are two ways fear can take place. Most people call it the "high road" and the "low road." As for me, I call them Sherlock Bones and Jitterbug. While Sherlock likes to figure things out and rationalize the fear before acting on it, Jitterbug acts first and asks questions later.

"For Sherlock, after the stimulus, you first have the Thalamus. It's this thing here in the center that kinda looks like an egg. Anything you learn by using your senses- you know, what smell, taste, blah, blah, blah- is sent here and it decides where that information should go next. The information then goes to the Sensory Cortex- right here- that tries to figure everything out. Then there's the Hippocampus. It can bring up memories to make people think if they've seen something before or not, and if they have, could it be dangerous. The Amygdala is then told whether or not there is something to fear, and finally the Hypothalamus reacts to it all. It also causes a "fight or flight" response.

"As for Jitterbug, he skips most of everything and goes straight to the Amygdala and Hypothalamus, reacting without thinking and instead automatically assuming there's a threat. He's like a trigger happy idiot.

"And to think all of this can happen in just a second. Neat, huh?"

Randy just nodded. He couldn't right down everything she told him fast enough and frankly, he believed it was all a little more complicated than her short, sweet, and to the point version of it. How she knew all of this stuff- it was either that or she learned fast- he would never know. He looked through the book and squinted down at the images she pointed down at, biting down on his lower lip. He needed to get used to getting by without having to rely on his glasses. He couldn't go back to them. Eventually though, even Tani was getting impatient with his constant squinting, illegible scribbles, and having to repeat herself again and again.

"Just put your glasses on," she said with a sigh, "Come on, it's me; I'm not going to laugh at you for having them and face it, you're as blind as a batraptor without them." Before he could stop her, she grabbed the case, took them out, and put them on him. "Better?"

"You wouldn't understand, Tani. It's complicated," he took them off and set them to the side.

"Only because you're _making_ it complicated!" she groaned, plopping onto her back.

Randy tried again to write down some of the notes on his paper, but it was still pretty difficult, even as he brought the paper far away from his face. She watched him for a little while longer before reaching for a rubber ball lying on Mike's desk. Tani tossed it up at the ceiling, caught it with both hands, and repeated the process, sometimes using her tail instead. _Thwack! Thwack! …Thwack!_ went the ball as it struck. He wanted to ignore it, but it proved challenging.

So he picked the glasses back up and stuck them on again, "There, happy now?"

"Yes," she smiled, staring at him.

"What?"

Tani snorted, "You're adorkable."

"Excuse me?" he blinked at her.

"An adorable dork."

This time, it was he who groaned, "See? _This_ is why I can't wear the glasses! We're monsters, we're _Scarers_! We're not supposed to be adorable, or cute, or dorky; we're supposed to be _scary_!"

He started to take them off for the second time, but a pair of hands overtop his own stopped him. His wide, jade eyes looked into Tani's ocean-like ones. "What's wrong with being both?"

He didn't really know what to say to that, "What do you mean both?"

"Well… when we're in class and we're doing our exercises, you keep the glasses off and scare the bejeebers out of the whole school. But when we're out of class, or we're just hanging out," she took his hands away from the glasses, "you be you."

"I don't know if I can do that…" While he'd never given it much thought before and had just lived his life, he had always been the 'geek with the glasses' in high school. But when Mike told him to lose them because they gave up his invisibility, he then found he wasn't facing as many problems with that… and he liked that. If it meant going back to being picked on, he wasn't sure if it was worth it.

"I like the adorkable you," she said reassuringly, as if reading his thoughts, "Just because you're a little different doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Different means one of a kind, special, a rarity. Different is good."

Randy looked down and sighed. Could she be right? After all, Tani was different, _very_ different, and he liked that about her. "… Alright," he said finally, "but only when it's just the two of us. I'm not putting these things on in public and you can't tell anyone. Ok?"

She pretended to zip her mouth shut, gave him a thumbs up, and nodded.

"… Do you think you could still help me with notes after class in the ones we're together in?"

She unzipped her lips, "You got it."


End file.
